Just thought I'd ask a question to get peoples thoughts. I spent a few years learning programming languages such as Pascal, C and Delphi (in school and other wise). Then I tought myself Perl. I was always under the impression that because Perl is an interpreted language (such as javascript) rather that a compiled language (such as C or Pascal) it was considered a "scripting" language. I have just read the "Ten Perl Myths" article on the The Perl Archive home page which basically says that because I call it a script rather than a program, I don't know what I am doing. While I agree with most everything else the article talks about (the power of Perl an how easy it is, etc) I had to question the statement about "program vs. script". I just wanted to get others' opinions on this subject. Any thoughts?

You know, that's an interesting thought. I looked at the article by Simon Cozens and to me it looks like he was just being extreme in order to prove his point. Good for him. I do not agree with his statement which said:

"I'm going to talk about Perl programs here, but you might hear some people call them Perl scripts. The people who call them `programs' on the whole write better ones."

I think that is the most retarded thing I have ever heard! At work we do our whole back end in perl/CGI (www.eznettools.com). We use object oriented programming techiniques in our code, and yet I still refer to them as 'scripts' instead of 'programs'. That is my 'dialect', if you will. To say that my code is not as good as someone else's because I call it a scripts is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. But heh, that's my opinion.

I totally believe that perl is more of a programming language rather then a scripting language, just because of all the things I have been able to do with it. You can even do polymorphism with perl, try doing that in JavaScript. I consider perl a robust and powerful programming language, but I still refer to my code as scripts.

I call them both. I think that perl is a heck of a lot more powerfull and flexable than java script. There happens to be a true form of perl that is perl script. You can write it right into the html. It looks just like java script but it uses all of the same old perl commands. I don't know if anyone's heard of it but it's out there. So I think that perl script is one type of perl, and perl (The core language) is the programming language. Just like java. Their is a difference between java and java script. It's just that perl script is hardly known. I think that they are true programms if their written in perl and that people can call them whatever they want. So with that in mind, How can what you refferer to your perl programms by reflect on the way you write them.

I heard a saying supposably came from the creator of the perl language which is supposed to show how powerfull and flexible perl actually is.

"In perl you can do anything you want in any way you want, and if you can't do it in perl, it's possible."

It probably sounds like your at the end of a grape vine, but that's pretty close.

I hear that in later versions of perl you will be able to produce c+ code in the perl. Executible c+ code within a perl programm. Same with java (Which I try to do all the time the best that I can with the current version of perl).

I think that in a later version you will be able to compile perl too, like c+ is. Has anyone else heard of that?

Just my thoughts,

perlkid

.. Excuse My Spelling Errors, That's if I spelled somthing like there's wd-40 on the keyboard.

To clarify my earlier post. I did not mean to imply that Perl and Javascript were equals. Perl is a far superior language. My comparison was only to say that they are both "interpreted" languages rather than "compiled" languages.

I do recognize the power of Perl. It is just that I was lead to believe early on that, being an "interpreted" language, you wrote scripts in Perl. It could be because at the time of learning, the books I got called them scripts and every Perl site calls them scripts. Even this one! Does that mean that all the scripts in these pages are crap? I think it would not matter if I refered to them as "Perl programs", "Perl scripts" or "Perl Documents". If the code is clean and works, its fine. If is isn't, then its crap. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans serif">quote:</font><HR> "In perl you can do anything you want in any way you want, and if you can't do it in perl, it's possible." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I will assume this is meant to say "...if you can't do it in perl, it's impossible" Not trying to cut on you, just wanted to clarify that for other readers.

Not to get off topic, but I think it is a relavent analogy. Although I've not experienced this myself, from what I've heard, you can do some mighty powerful things with SQL. I do believe you write SQL scripts not programs. Could be wrong on that one.

last semester a couple of guys and myself compiled perl 'programs' into C++ code in order to test a cluster. So it is possible to compile it into C++ code even now. Another guy at work views perl as ALMOST being a compiled language because when it is interpreted it goes through a double pass before it is executed. That's an interesting thought as well

While on that subjuect, I was asked to creat a system for a search engine in perl for a temporary model to get it up and running. This was before I started learning perl and when I learned perl I was able to do everything required and more for the engine. I never thought that I would be able to do the whole system in perl. But now I know what you can do with perl and I looked at all of the c++ engines and I can't find a difference. I was supposed to do everything in perl and then later in C++ so that it would be as fast as possible. Now I don't know if learning c++ is worth it. What do you think? I c++ more powerfull than perl?

Don't worry about it monocle, I also asked the guy that told me that and he said to me "no, I meant if you can't do it in perl there is some possible way that you can find to do it". I'd think that impossible makes more sense too but I think we all get that It's supposed to mean perl is powerfull.

Yeah, perl is god's gift to mankind, but it just can't do everything as well as C++ can. Each of these languages have their place in the programming world, and some things are just done better in C++ (or Java, or Lisp, or VB or whatever).

In my personal opinion C++ is so much more powerful than perl in the OOP realm of things (please don't tell Larry Wall I said that). But as a side note, perl is so much better in working with strings and regex's.

There is an O'reilly book called 'Mastering Algorithms with Perl' (it has a wolf on the cover), and in it they talk about linked lists, heaps, binary trees, and the like. Maybe it is just because I started learning C++ 6 months before I started learning perl, but I really think it is easier to implement some of these concepts in C++ than in perl.

So before I step off my soap box, my advice is to learn C++, and while you're at it get Java certified by Sun. Trust me, it is definitely worth it.